by Steve Cole
Wrapped in his thoughts and fears and hopes, James trudged on through Moscow’s demanding sprawl. A dark lane with slanting pavements cut onto a wide-open thoroughfare pocked with giant craters: either bombsites or foundations being laid. Dangerous foundations: his father’s words in the letter seemed almost mocking now. He hurried on, past the baroque facade of an old red-brick church, muttering prayers and paranoid that danger would strike just as he stood ready to find the long-buried truth and drag it out of hiding.
At the end of that street he emerged onto the ulitsa Bolshaya Ordynka. The street was neat and ordered, but its rows of small classical and Empire-style mansions had seen better days. At this end of the street the house numbers were low, so he turned right, still unable to shake the feeling that he was being watched.
Finally, heart pumping faster, James found himself surveying number 67: an old, three-storeyed, cream-coloured dwelling, edged by a fancy cast-iron fence. Exploring further he found a quiet square courtyard to the rear of the house; large trees had grown carelessly tall in each corner, shaking untidy boughs of green confetti at the highest windows.
Did my father stand here? Somehow, right now, James felt closer to him than ever.
Returning to the front of the house, James climbed the steps to the imposing door. His knock sent pale-blue paint-flecks falling to the dirty doorstep, and jarred the door off its latch so that it swung open.
Drawing a deep breath, James walked out of the sunlight and into the musty shade of a huge, neglected front hall. A carbon arc lamp shone dimly, barely illuminating a ceiling that was black with grime. There was another door ahead of him, and stairs leading up into shadows.
James tried the door. It opened with a drawn-out creak, and he peered through into a mid-sized room crowded with furniture and strewn with clothes. An armchair placed beside a pile of blankets was crowned with a pillow – an impromptu bed. There was no one there. James closed the door again and ventured cautiously up the narrow staircase. He thought he heard movement further up round the corner – a stealthy, light-heavy retreat, as if someone had a limp or was carrying something bulky. But when he reached the next landing, there was no one in sight; another door stood closed and black against him.
James smelled cabbage and sausage coming from a room at the end of the landing. He walked cautiously across and looked in on a cramped kitchen, dominated by a black-leaded, wood-burning range that stood cold and empty, as if intimidated into silence by the three Primus stoves on the floor before it. Why so many?
A voice behind him made James start. He whirled round and saw a large, elderly woman in a grey floral dress that had seen better days. She looked indignant, and began speaking loudly.
‘I don’t understand you,’ James said bluntly. ‘English?’
The old woman stopped talking and stared.
‘Do you know the name Andrew Bond?’
The woman muttered a curt dismissal that would be much the same in any language, and bustled off through the other door on the landing. As she left, James saw a shadow shift behind her. He walked out of the kitchen, but the shadow had withdrawn. There was movement on the stairs round the corner.
On instinct, James hurried up them in pursuit. ‘Hello?’ he called. ‘I’m looking for something . . . or somebody . . .’ He trailed off. What the hell was he looking for? Up ahead he heard a scrabbling on wood and as he burst onto the upper landing he saw a girl with a cane, long pale fingers grappling with a brass doorknob.
‘Excuse me,’ James said, politely but with force, leaning against the wall beside her, trying to get her to look at him instead of at the door. ‘Do you know Bond? Andrew Bond?’
The girl turned to him now, slender and attractive, looking out from under thick black hair. Her eyes were wide and blue and guileless, round pools in a face like white stone scrubbed smooth by the sea. Her nose was as straight as a statue’s and her lips were like those in a little girl’s drawing: plump, red love-hearts split by the dark line of her mouth. And yet, for all her beauty, there was something in her being that James shrank from. It was like an absence of spirit; almost as if a part of her had broken once and in consequence the whole had ceased to work and held itself separate.
‘Please, will you help me?’ James said simply.
The girl looked at him, her thin brows knotted part way between startled and suspicious. ‘English?’ Her voice was unexpectedly deep.
‘Yes. My name is Bond—’
‘Go.’ Her aspect hardened as she opened the door. ‘Leave us alone.’
‘Us?’ James seized on the word like a dog thrown a steak, and he saw the blue eyes widen. ‘You speak English. Who are you with?’
Saying something in Russian now, she slipped through the slender gap in the doorway.
‘Wait.’ James set his foot firmly against the door before she could bang it shut. ‘I got this address from Andrew Bond.’
‘There are many here, staying.’
‘But you speak English. Could you help me—’
‘We have rules. We do not talk to strangers. It is . . . noticed.’ She brought the pointed end of her cane down on James’s foot. He scowled, retreated – and the door slammed shut. His hand was reaching for the brass doorknob when he heard the turn of a key in the lock.
‘Damn,’ James breathed. What could he do now – kick the door down? He couldn’t force the girl to talk to him . . .
Equally, he couldn’t just walk away.
James put his ear to the door, but all he could hear were voices from the landing below: muted urgings, mutterings. James walked wearily back down the stairs to find the woman he’d seen before dragging an elderly man out of the room. He was wielding a poker in his hand, which was shaking badly. His squinting, red-rimmed eyes were magnified by thick round glasses so that they looked more comic than fierce. He took a short, warning stab at James, then broke off into a coughing fit.
Holding up his hands in apology, James backed away down the stairs to the entrance hall. What a curious arrangement! Were the old couple related to the girl? No, he remembered the portable stoves – they suggested different groups: There are many people living here.
Whoever had been resident when Andrew Bond made note of the address, they could be dead by now, or moved away, or ‘disappeared’ by the state into a labour camp in the distant east . . .
And I could go the same way if I’m not careful. James went out through the front door, but wasn’t about to give up now. He would make a further visit when the working day was done, when the house was full.
Wave all the pokers at me you like. I will get answers.
James went down the steps and circled the house, peering up at the windows. The strains of some dramatic classical music floated down from an upper window, the flutes and strings overlaid by the crackle and scratch from a gramophone record. James had heard it somewhere before: an opera, perhaps, or a ballet? Dirty curtains blew at the window, hiding the view inside.
Frustrated, James stalked out of the courtyard and away back down the street. He didn’t see the bearded man with the pockmarked face and the staring eyes who stepped forward into the sunlight from the front porch pillars of the property across the road, staring over at the many windows of number 67, Bolshaya Ordynka Street.
13
The Father and the Son
IMPATIENT AND NERVOUS, and with hours to kill, James decided to pass the time in the large park that skirted the Moskva river to the west of the city. It would be hard for anyone to follow him inconspicuously there and, God knew, his aching soles could use a change from concrete and tarmac underfoot. Thoughts of Elmhirst and the man with the slashed throat, and the gunshot were pounding through his head to the same relentless rhythm. Then he pondered where he would go tonight. The hotel would doubtless be under observation, not only by the people who’d tried to kidnap him, but also by the secret police.
One step at a time, James told himself. You can’t control the future, so work on the present as hard a
s you can. The girl who spoke English: judging by the way she’d avoided him, by the fear in her eyes . . . she knew something, James was certain.
With his legs worn out from tramping across Moscow, he decided to take the Metro. The gargantuan subway stations made impressive sights. Exiting onto the concourse at Park Kultury, James felt as if he was exploring a vast subterranean Turkish bath, with vaulted stone ceilings and immaculate walls. Giant murals in mosaic and brilliantly coloured paint adorned the walls, while Grecian statues stood in niches among the many-coloured marble pillars and arches, like would-be travellers turned to stone.
Finally emerging from below ground, James came to the Gorky Park of Culture and Rest off the busy Krymsky Bridge. Soon he was trailing through the cultivated fields and lawns. In the late afternoon sun, the deep green of the grass set off the whites of the balustrades along the embankment and the statues of sportsmen, and the cobalt blues of the lakes and ponds. On the banks, bushes covered in white and red blooms had been carefully pruned into likenesses – James recognized the great dictator, Stalin, and supposed the others were Soviet heroes or politicians. He walked on in search of more carefree sights. Boats were afloat on a lake, and James imagined being out in one himself, rowing across the water, relaxing. How long since he’d allowed himself the luxury of switching off like that, of letting go?
One more stab at finding the truth of this riddle. James rubbed the tired and aching muscles at the back of his neck. If I still get nowhere, then I’ll find a way to sneak back to the National and learn what’s what; at least they speak English there.
James soon found that the park was more than a green space – it proved to be a 750-acre demonstration of how good socialists ought to spend their leisure time. According to the notes on the tourist map, it had been conceived and built as a centre for health and recreation, catering for the cultural needs of millions of visitors, encouraging them to take part in artistic and sporting activities. In one vast enclosure James saw volleyball played with grace and skill, while beyond that an open-air chess festival was taking place. He felt a little calmer in this unexpected oasis.
City life cut in soon enough as a clock tower clanged five with monotonous chimes. James took it as his signal to return to the house on Bolshaya Ordynka and start his surveillance. The city was filled with evening life. Special constables in blue armbands directed the traffic as trams clattered past, and buses bore their passengers in all directions across the city. Again, James stuck to the quieter streets where possible. Windows stood wide open, and the strains of a stately dance in three/four time emanated from a score of wireless sets. The roofs and attics seemed alive with the scratchy music, and when a man began an operatic serenade twenty times over, it seemed a whole company was singing the city to rest.
Finally James turned onto Bolshaya Ordynka. He had not gone ten yards when he saw a thin, dark-haired figure walking towards him, leaning lightly on a cane. The girl. Immediately James dropped to one knee, pretending to tie his shoelace, then crossed the road between two parked motor cars. From the other side of the street he watched her walk by, an empty string grocery bag in her free hand. She was going shopping, then – perhaps fetching food.
James quickened his step. With the girl not around to observe him, he might get further in his investigations.
Fortuitously, the front door still stood ajar. James walked up the steps as if he owned the place, and went inside.
The house was quiet. The front hall was just as he had left it, and he could hear no sounds of life. He took the stairs up to the first floor and looked into the communal kitchen. A pile of old utensils lay scattered on the floor as if kicked, but everything else was just as it had been.
James went up to the next landing and knocked on the door the girl had slipped through. There was no response. He put his ear to the wood, heard nothing, and placed his hand on the brass doorknob; there was a quiet squeal as the handle turned, but the door didn’t budge.
‘Hello?’ James tried. ‘I’m here because of Andrew Bond. I’ve got a message—’
‘Bond?’
James jumped back, almost crashing against the opposite wall. The voice that had come through the door was deep and loud. The man must be standing right up against it.
‘Bond, for God’s sake . . .’ The voice had dropped to a hoarse pantomime whisper. ‘It can’t be you!’
Hair prickling on the back of his neck, James took off his cap and stepped forward again. ‘It is,’ he said cautiously. ‘I’m Bond.’
A key turned in the lock and the door opened to reveal a dishevelled, pathetic-looking man, perhaps in his early sixties. He had been handsome once, James supposed, but now the left side of his pale, lined face sagged as if the muscles had given up. His silver hair was thin and lifeless and his blue eyes looked rheumy, unseeing. The man’s dark suit was of good quality, but too big for the spindly body it contained.
‘Andrew Bond!’ The man nodded, smiling – not so much at his visitor, James felt, as at his own cleverness in recognizing him. He spoke fluent English with a strong Russian accent. ‘I thought you had died, but I should have known better: the dead do not stay buried. The past will not leave us in peace.’
James opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He didn’t know what to say. How can this man think that I am Andrew Bond? Is he blind? Yet if he admitted he was not, would the old man stop talking? He doesn’t just look sick in his body . . .
His mind must be broken.
‘It’s . . . been a long time,’ James said, noncommittal.
‘Has it? Has any time passed at all?’ The old man shook his head, his fingers plucking nervously at his sleeves. ‘You promised they’d never know I approached you. Promised that the woman in the veil would be stopped, that you’d get me out.’
‘I . . . did my best,’ James said with feeling, even as he remembered his father’s telegram. ‘You worked with the veiled lady?’
‘Her sights were upon me.’ The man looked troubled. ‘You know, I was a great architect once. I took space and gave it purpose. Such . . . terrible purpose.’ He gazed up into James’s face, but again, he didn’t really seem to be looking as he attempted a further smile. ‘But, this is no place to talk, eh? Out on the landing! We will disturb the others. Three other families live in our house now. It’s a good citizen’s duty, eh? So much space here, while others crowd together, a family to a room . . . Come inside. Let no one say that Ivan Kalashnikov has no manners.’
That name. James almost jumped as he pictured the signature on the building designs in the planning files in London: I. Kalashnikov, the architect responsible for the Mechta Academy. ‘Thank you . . . Mr Kalashnikov.’ James followed him into a study with a dusty dark-wood table and chair, and even dustier books and papers on the shelves. Some of the books were in English, and concerned with architecture.
Andrew Bond had been trying to direct Max to Kalashnikov. Not only the mole in the Soviet scheme . . . but its architect?
‘Anya is out just now.’ Ivan shuffled across the little study and gestured to a chair. ‘We can talk more freely without her here. She still does not know. Not all of it.’
James took off his backpack, wincing at the ache in his muscles, and placed it on the floor with his cap. ‘What doesn’t she know?’
‘The secrets I meant to take to my deathbed . . .’ Ivan laughed suddenly, turned to the shelves and felt along the books until he reached one so large it jutted over the edge. ‘So many dead around me, and yet the grave eludes me still, Bond!’ He heaved the book down onto the table with a slam and turned to the last page. James saw a newspaper clipping there from the Daily Telegraph dated March 1933, and quickly scanned it. The story concerned a group of eleven mystery men with no identity papers who had drowned together in the Thames. No one had reported any missing persons, but the article noted that each body bore large, distinctive tattoos – in Russian. ‘When I saw this news, I prayed that the Project would be discovered, that my works would
never stand complete. But no, the connection was not made.’
‘Your four buildings in London, you mean?’
‘Four entry points.’
‘Entry to where?’ James had no idea what he was talking about. ‘Could you tell me more about the Project—’
‘They were criminal tattoos on her workforce, of course.’ Ivan tapped the side of his nose. ‘They show what you did, and your ranking in the gulag. You know, the gulags, the Soviet labour camps? Criminals and political prisoners are sent there: an expendable workforce. When I read that you had died, I felt sure that they knew I had contacted you . . . that I would be sent to the gulag myself.’ James jumped as Kalashnikov’s hand suddenly closed on his wrist. ‘I should have died there, let Anya be rid of me. I should be set free, Bond, just as you were. Secrets weigh too heavily upon me, you know? You understand?’
‘I understand,’ James said, although he didn’t. ‘But the Project, and the way to bring it down – down with just one blow, you said. Can you remind me . . .?’
‘Remind you? What I did to Anya was down to you!’ Kalashnikov’s lips shrank back from his teeth in a feral grimace and he slammed the large book closed. ‘You know the risks I took, approaching you, the big Vickers man? “We pay well for new weapons,” you said. “Tell me everything; trust me,” you said. I compiled all the information. You said you’d act on it. You knew the dangers, same as me, but—’ He stopped suddenly as if a thought had occurred. ‘Didn’t you take my gun?’
James frowned, wrong-footed.
‘I gave it to you. They say a gun is never the answer, don’t they . . .?’
‘A gun is never the answer?’
‘See?’ Kalashnikov giggled. ‘Oh, but that gun really was the answer. It really was . . .’
‘Mr Kalashnikov – Ivan – please—’